Wishes, Writers and Webs

The word of the week is perspicacity.

Jan 20 - Careful what you wish for

It looks like I'll have more time to write in February.

In the post holiday season, my day job is slowing down and because of that, they've cut hours rather severely. So much so, that I have been scaled back to a mere two shifts a week.

Two. Quite bluntly, that's not enough to live on.

Not that I was making a whole lot to begin with, but this is a whole new level of getting kicked in the wallet. To be fair, the managers are rather put out as well. They know that the staff have to eat and pay rent and don't do much beyond that as it is with what they're being paid with full-time hours. I don't know when things will pick up again, but I'm not sure I want to bet it will be only a few weeks. Besides, it's not like I'll be making a whole lot more even with full-time hours in the foreseeable future...

Thus, my plan is: job search like crazy - all over again. And write.

I should be able to find something within a month or so, I hope. It's not like I'm trading down from a high-paying job, after all, but unfortunately jobs are still not exactly falling out of trees around here. I'm hoping that some networking will help find me something, as trying to make ends meet on sixty hours pay a month is, quite simply, impossible. I knew that I'd have to move on eventually, but it may happen sooner than I'd thought.

My job can no longer sustain me, so I must leave.

Jan 21 - Struggling Self

Transitions are never easy things.

I feel as though I'm in the middle of one now, though where it will end is anyone's guess, including mine. Some people in midlife can see the end of their road, at retirement a few decades away. Others see a few more job-hops covering their bases, or perhaps they have different dreams.

Myself, I just want to write.

At the moment, that's only possible with my voice, as my arms continue to disappoint me by not keeping up with what my brain wants them to do. Creatively, that's just fine and less often of late I have to shove aside thought that I'm not really writing if I'm not using my hands to type what my mind comes up with.

Back to transitions. Here I am, stuck again between a rock and a hard-looking place, searching for a new path to leaping out of the maze I've wandered into somehow without my noticing. Perhaps I'll be able to find something better to sustain me financially for the next year or two, maybe even graduating to freelancing for living. Though I know through my research that writing for dollars alone will tax my creative spirit a great deal and may not leave a lot left over for what's needed to advance my Muse's desire to simply create.

But if there's one thing I do know, it's that I'm able to face adversity with a smile.

Jan 22 - Galactic Webs

Some cool space news this week!

For the first time, astronomers have been able to detect and image the cosmic web that connects all the galaxies of the universe together. Have a look:

This is very exciting news, as it shows that 'empty' space is hardly that. I find such discoveries thrilling, as they opened new avenues for the imagination right alongside scientific discovery. It's what science fiction is about, at its heart: dreaming the impossible and seeing it fulfilled in unexpected ways.

Myself, I thought the universe would look like the synapses of a giant brain, but then again who's to say?

Jan 23 - FREE houses?

While it's hard to believe, you can write your way into home ownership… in Detroit.

Yes, the same city that Robocop calls home, which has been in the news lately for pretty much imploding economically is looking towards urban renewal as a way of staving off total collapse.

Incredibly, community leaders decided that they need more( well-armed )writers - so much so that they're willing to give them a free house if they decide to make the city their permanent home:

Writers from all over the world, or living just a few miles away, are all encouraged to apply. If they win, they'll call Detroit home for at least the next two years. Writers will lease the homes from the nonprofit, a small amount to cover taxes and insurance. If they stay for 24 months, they'll be awarded the deed -- and Detroit will count another resident to its comeback.

I think it's a fascinating idea, to create a city where working writers are welcomed as integral parts of the community to the point where they are awarded homes. Given that the writing life isn't exactly a well-paying one, it's hard for a writer to make a meaningful impact will try to make a living and stay at it is a sign that words are far more important than the means to exist while scribing them.

That writers may help shape the future of Detroit, I think is worth writing about.

Jan 24 - Ryno vs. Copenhagen

A few months ago, I mentioned a new kind of electric wheel for my bike.

Obviously, with my work cutting back as it has for the near future, I'll have to put off any plans for getting such a device for a good while, at least. They'll just have to remain dreams and get even better as time marches on.

Yet, some people don't give up on turning their dreams into reality.

One such person is Chris Hoffmann, who has created the RYNO:

The RYNO is powered monowheel, meant to be used a low speed for getting around instead of walking or cycling. It's a new form of personal transportation, with the inevitable comparisons waiting to be made to the oft-maligned Segway. Based in Portland, RYNO Motors is poised to release their initial units in Asia, then around the world. Best guesstimate for the price is around $4000 USD, which isn't bad, though I have to say you can get a nice electric scooter for that price that's a LOT faster. But still…

Seeing as the Segway hasn't really caught on, I hope the RYNO does; it just looks too cool NOT to!

Jan 25 - Fortuitous Linkage

Speaking of segways…

I'm always interested in finding new ways of looking at the world learning from it.

This week, a friend of mine( who also possesses a gift for words )sent me a link for Brainpickings.org, a site  created to be a 'human-powered discovery engine for interestingness' - sounds like my kind of place!

The core ethos behind BrainPickings is that creativity is a combinatorial force: It’s our ability to tap into the mental pool of resources — ideas, insights, knowledge, inspiration — that we’ve accumulated over the years just by being present and alive and awake to the world, and to combine them in extraordinary new ways. In order for us to truly create and contribute to culture, we have to be able to connect countless dots, to cross-pollinate ideas from a wealth of disciplines, to combine and recombine these ideas and build new ideas — like LEGOs. The more of these building blocks we have, and the more diverse their shapes and colors, the more interesting our creations will be.

Interestingly, Brainpickings has been around for seven years, only a little longer than I've been keeping my own blog. In that time, it looks like they've accumulated quite a lot of fascinating articles( all of them ad-free! )and I think I'll be spending a bit of my unasked-for free time each week perusing them.

Reading good writing's good for the brain, after all!

Jan 26 - Illusions

Let's close the week with an observation about people.

Last night, I was out at a coffee shop with a friend visiting from the mainland. A young man approached us( not that I'm all that old either, mind you.. ) and asked us for change to call a friend he'd been waiting for. My years of working at MMart told me that this fellow was somewhat sketchy, but there were no majorly bad vibes, so I indulged in a little forward karma and dug up the last of my change give to him.

After trying to call his friend with no success, the young man came back inside and chatted with us briefly, introduce himself as Miles. He made some observations about the popularity of android phones and how he's trying to start a business local to help people do more with their phones. He seemed to be sincere, so my friend and I wished him luck as we departed.

Today at work, Miles tried to casually steal a backpack.

He was spotted in time and staff monitored him until he finally left, empty-handed.

What does this mean, I asked myself? 

Am I to infer that my judgment of people is impaired, that I should have seen this coming? Should I be less trustful of people, presuming that they're going to disappoint me? Or did I see everything there was see about Miles, good and bad, in a nutshell of perhaps 30 min. total? Or, is there something else that I'm totally missing about this particular aspect of life?

I'm not sure what to tell you. All you know is that I met a young man who seemed to have some promising dreams and turned out to have chosen to take a darker path instead of pursuing the better choice.

While that's not a high note to end the week on, it's very definitively a human one.

I'm having a difficult time writing the blog this week; for some reason, my computer is glitchy and slow and so my voice recognition software is and miss translating like crazy. Dealing with it is rather trying and underscores the difficulties I have in getting exactly what's in my head out onto the page without the use of my hands. If it was simple, I'd be a lot happier and a lot less stressed: I could just speak my mind and let the words flow...